The Indigo Veil
by MurderSwan
Summary: Bernard Ludvigsen lives the life of your average dejected 40-something under oppressive Combine occupation. Until something finds him in his dreams.


**This piece was originally written to organize my idea of Bernard Ludvigsen's character, who I used on Nebulous Cloud's HL2RP server for, like, ten minutes until I got bored (HL2RP unfortunately fails to thrill me like it used to). He was to be abruptly changed by the events of this story, claiming to have been offered a cosmic understanding of the conflict between the Combine and humanity, and several other forces beyond comprehension. Whether or not this is true is completely up to speculation-I, of course, couldn't manifest supernatural things while playing the character in-game, so most likely it's all a delusion. Then again, such a restriction doesn't exist on , so I may expand upon the idea if I'm feeling up to it.**

Train rides never thrilled Bernard. Even as a wide-eyed child travelling between the charming little towns in Denmark, the _cachunk cachunk_ of the rail-bearings and the rough gliding of the wheels always discomforted him somehow. Memories of his mother were never fond, and perhaps it was her grotesque, witch-like image plastered upon the foam-backed train seat across from him that made the rides so engulfing and isolating. Her cold stare lifelessly scanned the pages of her make-up magazine, or whatever other drivel she had bought with scraped up child-support money. Like a corpse, unmoving but for her bony hand pinching at her current page's corner and flipping it away, almost dismissively, as if the page were a reflection of Bernard.

Fucking hated her. Drugged-up batshit insane drama queen with no regard for anybody but herself. When young, he knew that it was usually the favored parent that kept the child, the one who would invariably receive the kid's adoration and loyalty. Not here, god no. Dad abandoned him and he still liked him more, wanted to play ball with him, wanted to talk to him about life, about women, about anything. The constant train rides guided his thoughts much as the train was guided by rails. Although the seats, this time, faced towards the walls of the car and not one another, something about the way he could watch them rumble in rhythm with the track's bumps always brought that shrill demon of a bitch mother back, seated across from him with a cigarette hanging from her lips lathered in cheap lipstick.

City Nineteen to City Twenty-Four. One way relocation ticket, non-negotiable, non-refundable.

"For sociostability purposes," the relocation officer, a droll 40-something who hadn't bathed in a week, "The Council of Citizen Identification has chosen to relocate you to City Twenty-Four." Bernard hadn't bothered listening, knowing for certain that nothing said would even relate to him anyway. Same shit, different place, same pointless subservient existence under constant surveillance by inhuman jackass cops brought to violence by mere boredom. The perfect system, Bernard thought to himself. Don't incentivize brutality, just bore the fuck out of people in masks and let them commit assault whenever they want-trust in the fact that they'll eventually succumb and just starting hitting innocents on child-like whims.

Bernard's eyes started to twitch. How long was this trainline? How long had he been on it? Maybe, he figured, he had just woken up. Yeah, that was it. It wasn't dark before-was morning-, didn't see pitch black from the window. As they opened, Bernard's pinpoint eyes focused on the blackness outside. Something was certainly wrong. That umbral shroud just beyond the window couldn't be the result of night. The totality and incompleteness of it, the void and the infinite. Empowered by awe, Bernard stood from his seat. Every crunch, every misshaping of the foam beneath him exploded into a satisfying din that echoed into the void, yet it submitted from Bernard no focus, no consideration, in contrast to what lay just beyond the smeared glass pane on the side of the car.

A sudden plume of bright blue. No, not blue-indigo, the most pure indigo pleased his dinner-plate eyes, his utter stare. Immense, that was all he could call her as she manifested in sweeping tendrils of brilliant color, foaming into existence her smooth, pallid face and her endless, indigo robe that pulsed rhythmically as if disturbed by bursts of wind.

Words. Words? They must have been, yet his ears heard naught. What meaning could words truly convey to him, what use were to they to something of this complete beauty?

"You are going to believe I am false. That I cannot exist. Your mind is adjusted to perceive its oneiric constructions as mere projections of the subconscious. Avast these doubts. I am true. There are no gods, only the powerful. Seek me in all that you do. Seek what lies beyond the indigo veil, seek the fates, seek Carcosa and its mighty rivers. There, you will find the reason for your race's torment. Salvation. Destruction." Instantly after, his vision was sucked out through a tube, slurped up in a nanosecond and pulled backwards, perhaps inwards, unto itself until it collapsed in an unimaginable cacophony that split Bernard's head while he jolted into consciousness.

The brakes of the train began to harshly grip the rails, screeching angrily into the vacant terminal; the sound bounded across the marble walls and lightly fluttered enormous red banners made of heavy cloth. Several others, whom he hadn't even noticed before, sat up from their seats and sluggishly gathered their luggage. But it was impossible to make sense of them. Their yawns and stretches and tired glances towards the floor, one man stood at the window slowly shaking his head, another gripped a metal pole near the door and checked his watch. To Bernard, suddenly, they seemed blind, like they were some species of ants delegated to a single sandy mound. Some dismal spot in an expanse of beautiful colors, of soft indigos and brilliant, sprawling turquoises.

Every sensation of that dream rattled around in his head. Each sight-every shade of those ungodly-awesome hues-, and each sound resounded, reverberated. Seek what lies beyond the indigo veil, he recalled.

"Seek the fates," From his lips came this murmur, unassuming and nearly silent-the woman leaving next to him was unperturbed-, as he stepped from the train platform and set off into City Twenty-Four.


End file.
